A Suitable Boy(210)

‘Well, I had dinner with their son-in-law the other day – yesterday, as a matter of fact – Arun Mehra, he works with us – oh, of course, you know Arun – and suddenly his brother tumbles in, drunk as a lord and singing away and reeking of some fearsome Shimsham fire-water – well, I’d never in a hundred years have guessed that Arun had a brother like that. And dressed in crumpled pyjamas!’

‘No, it is puzzling,’ agreed Jock Mackay. ‘I knew an old ICS chap, Indian, but pukka enough, who, when he retired, renounced everything, became a sadhu and was never heard of again. And he was a married man with a couple of grown-up children.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. But a charming people, I’d say: face-flattering, back-biting, name-dropping, all-knowing, self-praising, law-mongering, power-worshipping, road-hogging, spittle-hawking… There were a few more items to my litany once, but I’ve forgotten them.’

‘You sound as if you hate the place,’ said Basil Cox.

‘Quite the contrary,’ said Jock Mackay. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if I decided to retire here. But should we go back in? I see you‘ve lost your drink.’





7.13


‘DON’T think of anything serious before you are thirty,’ young Tapan was being advised by the round Mr Kohli, who had managed to free himself of his wife for a few minutes. He had his glass in his hand, and looked like a large, worried, almost disconsolate teddy-bear in a slow hurry; his huge dome – a phrenological marvel – glistened as he leaned over the bar ; he half closed his heavily lidded eyes and half opened his small mouth after he had delivered himself of one of his bon mots.

‘Now, Baby Sahib,’ said the old servant Bahadur firmly to Tapan, ‘Memsahib says you must go to bed at once.’

Tapan began laughing.

‘Tell Ma I’ll go to bed when I’m thirty,’ he said, dismissing Bahadur.

‘People are stuck at seventeen, you know,’ continued Mr Kohli. ‘That’s where they imagine themselves ever afterwards – always seventeen, and always happy. Not that they’re happy when they’re actually seventeen. But you have some years to go still. How old are you?’

‘Thirteen – almost.’

‘Good – stay there, that’s my advice,’ suggested Mr Kohli.

‘Are you serious?’ said Tapan, suddenly looking more than a little unhappy. ‘You mean things don’t get any better?’

‘Oh, don’t take anything I say seriously,’ said Mr Kohli. He paused for a sip. ‘On the other hand,’ he added, ‘take everything I say more seriously than what other adults say.’

‘Go to bed at once, Tapan,’ said Mrs Chatterji, coming up to them. ‘What’s this you‘ve been saying to Bahadur? You won’t be allowed to stay up late if you behave like this. Now pour Mr Kohli a drink, and then go to bed at once.’





7.14


‘OH, no, no, no, Dipankar,’ said the Grande Dame of Culture, slowly shaking her ancient and benevolent head from side to side in pitying condescension as she held him with her dully glittering eye, ‘that’s not it at all, not Duality, I could never have said Duality, Dipankar, oh dear me, no – the intrinsic essence of our being here in India is a Oneness, yes, a Oneness of Being, an ecumenical assimilation of all that pours into this great subcontinent of ours.’ She gestured around the drawing room tolerantly, maternally. ‘It is Unity that governs our souls, here in our ancient land.’

Dipankar nodded furiously, blinked rapidly, and gulped his Scotch down, while Kakoli winked at him. That’s what she liked about Dipankar, thought Kakoli: he was the only serious younger Chatterji, and because he was such a gentle, accommodating soul, he made the ideal captive listener for any purveyors of pabulum who happened to stray into the irreverent household. And everyone in the family could go to him when they wanted unflippant advice.

‘Dipankar,’ said Kakoli, ‘Hemangini wants to talk to you, she’s pining away without you, and she has to leave in ten minutes.’

‘Yes, Kuku, thanks,’ said Dipankar unhappily, and blinking a little more than usual as a result. ‘Try to keep her here as long as you can… we were just having this interesting discussion Why don’t you join us, Kuku?’ he added desperately. ‘It’s all about how Unity is the intrinsic essence of our being…’

‘Oh, no, no, no, no, Dipankar,’ said the Grande Dame, correcting him a trifle sadly, but still patiently: ‘Not Unity, not Unity, but Zero, Nullity itself, is the guiding principle of our existence. I could never have used the term intrinsic essence – for what is an essence if it is not intrinsic? India is the land of the Zero, for it was from the horizons of our soil that it rose like a vast sun to spread its light on the world of knowledge.’ She surveyed a gulab-jamun for a few seconds. ‘It is the Zero, Dipankar, represented by the Mandala, the circle, the circular nature of Time itself, that is the guiding principle of our civilization. All this’ – she waved her arm around the drawing room once more, taking in, in one slow plump sweep the piano, the bookcases, the flowers in their huge cut-glass vases, the cigarettes smouldering at the edges of ashtrays, two plates of gulab-jamuns, the glittering guests, and Dipankar himself – ‘all this is Non-Being. It is the Non-ness of things, Dipankar, that you must accept, for in Nothing lies the secret of Everything.’